Places in Leeds: Cabana

Last night I met up with two of my closest friends for a new years catch-up. We'd all been really busy over the festive period so had barely seen each other leaving us with lots to discuss; perhaps the best bit of gossip I can share with you is that Gaby, one of my oldest friends, spent her New Years Eve dancing in a show in the Maldives in front of the likes of David Beckham & co. The difference between our lives amazes me sometimes.

Anyway, we wanted to try somewhere new in Leeds to host our little reunion. I suggested Cabana, a fairly new addition to the Trinity centre. Cabana is a Brazilian restaurant- I know what you're probably thinking, what exactly does that mean? Judging by the menu it means street food, meat skewers and a whole load of caipirinhas. We decided to give it a try and I'm glad we did- even if just solely for the sake of the dessert alone, but I'll get to that later..

First of all: drinks. Caipirinhas are one of my favourite cocktails and Cabana's offering were definitely up to scratch. They had the classic lime option, which I went for, as well as kiwi, strawberry, pineapple & mint (which Gaby chose) and passionfruit (Lizzie's choice). As you can see, Lizzie was a big fan of hers.

Next up: the food. We decided to bypass the starters and go straight for mains. Lizzie & I both went for the spicy malagueta chicken skewer; malagueta is Cabana's signature sauce and you can buy a bottle of it to take home with you. Gaby plumped for the lime and garlic chicken skewer, and we all decided on the feijoada fries, which are sweet potato fries with a pork, beef and black bean stew on top. When your food is ready, each person's skewer is brought to the table separately and is transferred onto your plate. This is a bit of a gimmick I suppose but it all adds to the experience that Cabana is trying to give, which overall was a pretty good one. We all really enjoyed our food; the only thing I might say is that next time I visit it might be a good idea to share some different sides for a little more variety, as essentially what you have on your plate is just your meat. This isn't a complaint as such, because the meat is pretty damn good. Just a thought!

Now for the best bit: dessert. This is a bit of a tale- we paid after mains and went off into Trinity kitchen in search of one of their monthly stands called You Doughnut. Alas, when we got to the stand nobody was there serving. Determined to get some dessert we went through our options and decided to go back to Cabana as I'd heard great things about their nutella donuts. So off we went back inside the restaurant, much to the surprise of the waiter. Lizzie & I got the doughnuts while Gaby had a peanut butter and oreo sundae. Okay. I don't even know how to describe these donuts other than to say if you live in or near Leeds, you must go try them. Tiny donuts stuffed with nutella..served with more nutella for dipping. Apparently I hadn't read the menu properly as I didn't realise they actually had nutella inside them too, so you can imagine my delight when I had my first bite. Lizzie let Gaby try a few of hers in return for a bite of sundae- I'm almost glad I have a nut allergy therefore couldn't partake in this swap as these were far too good to share. It's probably time I stopped talking about donuts now. I'll just leave you with the photo instead.

Something else that I liked about Cabana is that although it is one of a chain of restaurants, the owners wanted to keep some authenticity. For example I've read that the different baskets they put your bill in were all bought from a young boy on a beach in Rio. The seats are made from recycled jeans selected from a small charity in Sao Paulo. They give out colourful ribbons with the bill which are popular in Bahia and are known as wish ribbons. According to Brazilian tradition, you're supposed to wear them until they fall off for your wishes to come true. So I'm not holding out any hope for my fancy New York apartment dream to come true, but it's a nice little touch all the same.

All in all we had a lovely few hours in Cabana and I'd reccommend it to anyone looking for tasty food in Leeds city centre.

Have you ever been to Cabana?

Places in Leeds: Cielo Blanco

I'm starting a new series on this here blog called, imaginatively, 'Places in Leeds'. Simple and to the point. I have an ever-growing list of restaurants and bars I want to try in my (pretty much) home city and now that I'm back from uni for good I've decided to start working my way through it. Leeds has really improved over the past few years and I love living so close to it. Until recently I was pretty adamant that I'd have to move to London somehow to experience city living but I'm starting to think I'd be quite happy to stay in Leeds; it has an abundance of great bars, pretty much any shop I could want to go to and more & more restaurants are choosing to open their only northern branches here- you can't imagine how excited I was when I first heard that Meat Liquor was moving on up (who has this in their head now? sorry). I sing Leeds' praises to any naive people who will listen so I thought it'd be a good idea to write about places, new and old to me, here.

Today I'd like to tell you about a mexican restaurant called Cielo Blanco. It's in the Trinity centre so has been open a while now but I've only just got round to trying it- something I'm pretty sad about. My friend Gaby and I chose it as our catch-up location and we were both thoroughly impressed. CB is committed to being authentically mexican, particularly in their emphasis on street food. 

First off we decided on drinks- this took longer than deciding on the food. I went for a west house mexicana- I couldn't tell you what was in it other than tequila, but I liked it- and Gaby had a pink grapefruit and pineapple margarita which she seemed pretty happy with. Foodwise, we decided to go for their 'street food experience' where you pick 6 of their dishes for £11.95 each- pretty good when you consider that each dish separately is £4-7. We went for stuffed jalapenos, pork tacos, rump steak quesadilla, chipotle mushroom and cheese flautas (we had no idea what this was upon ordering), mexican chicken dumplings and crispy squid tostadas- although these were just for Gaby as seafood and myself don't mix well. We also got some sweet potato fries with aioli to share because, well, just because. They also bring you some free tortilla chips with three different salsas after you've ordered which I think is a nice little touch.

As you can see it all looked, and luckily tasted, pretty great. Gaby couldn't quite deal with the heat of the stuffed jalapenos but I loved them, so was secretly happy to have them all to myself. I obviously didn't try her crispy squid but she munched her way through it all quite happily, so I'll deem that a success too! The tacos were probably my favourite thing but I'd definitely recommend the dumplings which were a surprising hit for both of us.

After we'd polished the lot off Gaby enquired about their desserts. The selection is so small that they don't actually have a menu- either churros or a chocolate sundae. I wasn't going to have a dessert actually, but as soon as Gaby ordered her churros I knew I'd have crippling food envy if I didn't have some too. And I'm glad I did...

Who can really resist anything in the doughnut family paired with chocolate sauce and ice cream? A better person than myself, I'll tell you that. 

I can't quite remember how much it all came to but I believe we paid about £25 each including a tip, which, although a little pricier than I'd sometimes be able to afford, I'm happy to pay every so often for a good meal and drink. All in all we both really enjoyed the experience of Cielo Blanco; the mixture of interesting drinks, lovely food and a chilled atmosphere means that I'll definitely be returning when I next have a mexican craving.